The Top 7... games that are cheaper than therapy

News
By published

Got a crippling mental disorder? We've got something to treat it

Entomophobia - Mister Mosquito
Eidos | PS2

Let's face it: most of us are total pussies when it comes to bugs. They're gross and kinda creepy, what with their glassy compound eyes and segmented leg parts and hairy shells and all. But sufferers of entomophobia take that to an extreme, unable to touch or in some cases even look at insects. Never mind that the things are tiny and mostly harmless; phobias are unreasonable fears by definition.

But what better way to deal with your fear than to become the thing you're most afraid of for a little while? Released back in 2002, Mister Mosquito casts players as a timid, cute version of one of the universe's worst animals.

As you dare the impossible to suck a tiny bit of blood from a family of three colossal, lumbering and extremely deadly humans, you'll get a sense that these little pests have every reason to be more afraid of us than we are of them. And then, just maybe, you'll learn to have a little more sympathy and trust for the hapless critters and their horrible squishy bodies.

Until you get malaria and die, that is.

Mikel Reparaz
Mikel Reparaz
After graduating from college in 2000 with a BA in journalism, I worked for five years as a copy editor, page designer and videogame-review columnist at a couple of mid-sized newspapers you've never heard of. My column eventually got me a freelancing gig with GMR magazine, which folded a few months later. I was hired on full-time by GamesRadar in late 2005, and have since been paid actual money to write silly articles about lovable blobs.